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You might easily read great tomes on the English, French, American and Russian revolutions and still not encounter anything that explains all or any of them remotely as succinctly as this text does. The combination of erudition, brevity and clarity of thought, which was Duncan''s forte, marked him out as one of the great socialist communicators of his generation, steeped in the Marxist tradition. I first read these essays as a novice shop steward in the early 1970s, and they have lost none of their sparkle, or wisdom. - Jack Robertson, author of The Man Who Shook His Fist at the Tsar, and translator of Larissa Reisner: The Hammer and the Anvil.

Our rulers today, in an age of permanent inter-imperialist war, still glorify the ''civilisation'' of the Roman Empire. It is therefore timely to remember the greatest ever challenge to that empire was from below, the mass slave revolt led by the Thracian gladiator Spartacus from 73-71 BCE. Chris Harman (1942-2009) was a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party and its forerunner, the International Socialists, in Britain. From the early 1960s, Harman had written about Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and the Spartakist League in his 1982 classic work, The Lost Revolution: Germany, 1918-1923. During the 1990s, Chris was working on his magisterial A People''s History of the World (1999), and the year before this work was published, he gave a talk on Spartacus at the annual Marxism Festival in 1998. The speech, published for the first time, with additional original notes by Chris, is a vivid account of one of the most heroic, but also tragic class struggles in history, plus a fascinating historical and materialist discussion on the interrelationship between slavery, the impoverishment of the Roman peasant, and the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.

First published in 1980, this edition of Red Shelley has been issued as a tribute to Paul Foot on the twentieth anniversary of his untimely death in 2004. Anyone lucky enough to have heard Foot speaking about Shelley at the packed-out meetings in the early 1980s will recognise that all the passion and emotion of those meetings are poured onto the pages of this book. Foot writes in a clear, straightforward, and expressive prose that rescues Shelley from the distortions of the establishment and the complexity of the academy. Red Shelley is a powerful polemic that offers the best possible introduction to the radical and revolutionary content of Shelley s poetry and political philosophy. - Paul O''Brien from the foreword

A pocket guide to the real Lenin, showing the complexities behind a man often vilified by historians. Ian Birchall guides the reader through an introductory analysis of Lenin''s experiences and achievements, showing his methods and motivations in attempting to create a world in which production was to be for human need rather than profit.

Judy Cox has written a wonderfully inspiring little book about Blake. She cuts away all the romantic and reactionary drivel written about him and reveals him as a prophet of liberation, political, artistic and sexual liberation. She sets him in his time as a creature of the French revolutionary fervour and expertly distinguishes him from the other great poets and writers of the enlightenment. Quite impossible to miss.

The claim of Israel and its apologists to represent Jews everywhere, the growth of the antisemitic far right, and the approach of the left to the Jewish question, are central issues today. A knowledge of the role of Jews in the past aids understanding of these debates. This book recovers some of that long-neglected history. Before the Second World War the majority of Jews were working class and part of a wider struggle alongside their non-Jewish comrades on the left. The book celebrates Jewish radicalism from the Tsarist Empire to Poland and Germany, from London to New York. To illuminate this background the issue of Jewish identity is analysed along political, cultural, and sociological lines. Fighting oppression and exploitation took numerous political forms, including left Zionism, Bundism and revolutionary Marxism. Far from the Zionist stereotype of the ultimate victims, Jews were revolutionaries, resistance fighters and firebrands. This inspiring radical tradition was ultimately

This updated edition of John Maclean: Red Clydesider marks the centenary of the death of John Maclean; the Glasgow schoolteacher who became one of the finest socialist leaders the British working class has ever produced. A fierce opponent of empire, Britain''s war cabinet saw Maclean as public enemy number one, whereas Lenin and the leaders of the first ever workers'' government in Russia regarded him as Britain''s outstanding revolutionary. A key figure of Red Clydeside, Maclean was involved with the Clyde Workers'' Committee, which spearheaded the rank and file revolt against the dismantling of trade union conditions during the First World War. He campaigned against spiraling wartime prices and helped lead the successful Glasgow rent strike of 1915, which pioneered council housing. He was only forty four when he died of pneumonia in November 1923. Yet his powerful legacy of -anti-imperialism and commitment to workers'' power lives on, making him a figure from history whose political mess

Over 2022-3, Britain has seen the biggest wave of strikes in a generation. Workers are fighting back. This short book provides an initial balance sheet of the experiences of these strikes. The rediscovery by significant numbers of workers of their ability to take collective action is something to be celebrated. But too often union leaders have put forward only a limited strike strategy - and been willing to accept deals far short of what is needed or that could be achieved. The book examines the nature of the trade union bureaucracy and looks at some of the grassroots challenges to it in the past. It also asks what we can learn from the strikes over pensions in France, why Labour doesn''t support the strikes, and what role socialist politics has in the workplace. It argues for a sharp challenge to the union bureaucracy and lays out a strategy for the way forward.

The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions was written in 1906 by Polish-born revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg. It brilliantly captures the fundamental lessons from the experience of mass workers'' strikes and their role in the 1905 Russian Revolution. Luxemburg lived in a world in crisis - one characterised by the fast approach of the First World War - and in an era when revolutionary struggles and ideas broke out internationally. Now, over a century later, capitalism is lunging deeper into a crisis of mammoth economic, political, social and ecological proportions. The need for mass strikes that can spill over into revolution is now existential. In this short book, Luxemburg shows how strikes call into question the relationship between the working class and the employing class, how political and economic demands fuse in the course of such strikes, and how they can start to challenge the conservative approach of the trade union leaders. Her book is as relevant as ever in hel

Capitalism has unleashed an environmental crisis it cannot solve. It destroys the planet and simultaneously prevents us addressing the crisis. Environmental protesters around the world are demanding ''system change'' because they know that capitalism puts the pursuit of profit before the lives of people and the planet''s ecology. The only conclusion can be that capitalism must go and so the struggle for a sustainable world needs revolutionary politics. Building a sustainable future will require the end of capitalism and the creation of a new, socialist, world. In this book, socialist and environmental activist Martin Empson, outlines the sort of politics we need, and argues that revolution is not an abstract concept from history - but an ''actuality'' for the 21st century. Indeed revolution is the only hope for humanity''s long-term future.

Walter Rodney was almost the same age as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr when he was assassinated on 13 June 1980 in Guyana at the age of 38. Throughout his short life, he waged a relentless battle against the horrors of capitalism, for which he should be revered as one of the great black leaders of the last century. Rodney is best known for his famous book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, which he wrote in Tanzania in 1972. But he was also an influential Black Power advocate in Jamaica and in the final years of his life, he led a revolutionary struggle in Guyana. This short introduction is an overview of Rodney''s life, activism and political thought, which aims to preserve and promote his legacy. This book intends to encourage young black people especially to read about Rodney and how he used Marxism to understand racism and organise for black liberation.

In two characteristically brilliant lectures, delivered in 1978 and 1991 and published here for the first time, Paul Foot made an impassioned and compelling attempt to bring home to his audience some sense of the richness of the ''hidden history'' of the Haitian Revolution. Through an inspired popularisation of C L R James''s classic work, The Black Jacobins, the lectures showed the emancipation of the enslaved was fought for and won by the enslaved themselves. Yet the lectures also outline the importance of the outstanding revolutionary leadership represented by Toussaint Louverture.

George Orwell is perhaps best known for his two anti-Stalinist novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four, both of which are often misused as a warning against socialism of any kind. But this obscures Orwell''s own radical socialist politics. This short introduction to Orwell''s life and his writings argues that he remained committed to international socialism and the need for revolutionary change until the end of his life.

More than ten years on from the Egyptian revolution of January 2011, Anne Alexander looks at the great wave of revolts that have shaken the region in the decade since, examining the political economy of the Middle East, the nature of the regimes and the factors which shaped the upheavals. Using a Marxist analysis, it examines the fate of those revolts, the emergence of counter-revolutionary forces and the potential for renewed uprisings and more far-reaching change in the years ahead. ''Anne Alexander''s book provides an in-depth account of the power structures and popular resistance in the Middle East. A must read for activists, academics and anyone who''s interested in the region''s history and future.'' Hossam el-Hamalawy

The struggle for Independence in Scotland raises profound questions about the nature and the future of the British state. This collection of essays retraces the key events in Scottish history from a Marxist perspective and examines the contradictions of the Scottish National Party, which wants Independence but only on the most cautious basis, in order to defend the interests of Scottish capitalism and its place in the world. It argues that the movement for Independence is rooted in a rejection of neo-liberalism, imperialism and racism and that, without the prospect of radical, progressive change, Independence will be an empty shell.

Three times in the last sixty years musical movements have played a vital role in confronting the rise of fascist organisations in Britain - The Stars Campaign for Interracial Friendship in the 1950s, Rock Against Racism in the late 1970s and Love Music Hate Racism in the first two decades of the 21st century. This book is a tribute to those three musical movements and the musicians, activists and youth subcultures that surrounded them, and an in-depth study of the rise of modern fascist movements and the political strategies needed to defeat them.

One of the most obscene spectacles of the Trump presidency has been that of evangelical pastors crowding round him to give him their blessing. But this is only a very public acknowledgement that he is very much their man. The 81 percent of white evangelical Christians, who made up a third of those voting for him, effectively put him in the White House. Not only did a large majority of evangelical Christians vote for him, but tens of thousands of them actively campaigned for him. How did they come to support an individual as saturated in sin as Trump?

From Bobby to Babylon, originally published in 1988, brings together a series of articles and interviews which provide the background and context to the urban rebellions which exploded across Britain in the wake of the Brixton riots of 1981, from the point of view of black people in Britain. Darcus Howe was born in Moruga, Trinidad in 1943. He came to England in 1962. For over 50 years he was a political activist and a journalist. His activism, had, as its major focus, police oppression in the black community. He took part in a Black Power rebellion in Trinidad in 1970 and became a member of the British Black Panther Movement when he returned to Britain. He came to prominence as one of the ''Mangrove Nine'', after being arrested on a march outside Notting Hill police station to protest against police raids of the Mangrove restaurant. He defended himself during the subsequent trial and famously argued that the defendants should have an all-black jury of their peers. His journalism covere

Engels was a great thinker who made a massive contribution to Marxist thought in his own right. His works cover the conditions for working class people in his adopted home of Manchester, the history of peasant struggles, philosophy, women''s oppression, science, evolution and anthropology. This book argues that they continue to provide tools to make sense of the world we live in today.

This is the story of two assaults on the organised working class around the little town of Peekskill in New York State late summer 1949. After a concert for the Civil Rights Congress was attacked by a mob, the workers of New York responded by re-staging the event under their own control. The response to this act of defiance was a second mass assault, one that was pre-planned and saw the rioters, the police and the local media working together to unleash a brutal and bloody vengeance on the concertgoers. This book tells of a society divided against itself by politicians who didn''t hesitate to use racism, fake news, paranoia and violence to stay in control. In the world of President Trump, Charlottesville and the rise of the far right the echoes of Peekskill are relevant and urgent.

Alexandra Kollontai was a revolutionary socialist who devoted her life to the fight for women''s liberation and human freedom. This short introduction to Kollontai''s life argues that her revolutionary ideas and activism contain vital lessons for the struggle for socialism and women''s liberation today.

We are in the midst of the greatest environmental crisis humanity has ever seen. Yet despite politicians'' rhetoric, repeated warnings from the scientific community and countless international conferences, the situation is getting worse. This book brings together articles from leading socialist and environmental activists who argue that the problem is the capitalist system.